


Annihilator from the Underground?!

by APgeeksout



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Community: hc_bingo, POV Second Person, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 07:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14131155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: “Danced, the fiend did! Jack cut ‘em to ribbons and never stopped skanking!”Headlines,Barrett's Disagreeable Dispatches and Daily Bad News, March 28, 1896





	Annihilator from the Underground?!

**Author's Note:**

> Contains minor spoilers for the Fallen London storyline “The Jack-of-Smiles Case”.
> 
> Covering the “serial killers” square of my H/C Bingo card during amnesty posting for Round 8.

The candles are burning low in your rooms above a bookshop, their sallow flicker casting just enough light over your scribbled notes and the copper cipher ring to confirm that you still don't have enough to decrypt the message tucked into the parcel you strolled out of the Carnival with three days past. You're hovering on the rim of a probably unwise choice between darkdrop coffee and a book you lifted from a Special Constable or a draught of brandy and the deep leather armchair where you occasionally even manage a sleep without nightmares, when you hear the cautious tread on your stair. 

You rise and creep toward the door, hand closing around the ratwork derringer tucked into your belt. The Russian Agent didn't see you in Wilmot's End; you slipped into the shadows long before the distant click of her heels echoed off the statuary. You're sure of it. Almost sure. 

But who else could it be? Roman's still at zee; a bat from off the coast of Mutton Island arrived only just after breakfast. Seth doesn't know this place; you bought the key only after his memory drove you out of every home you ever made together, and you haven't been weak enough - yet - to drag him back here after a night at the fighting ring. No one else is breathing down your neck; you haven't even pissed anyone off at the card tables this week.

There's a hesitant tap on the door, and you draw an easier breath. Neddy men and scuttering squads and assassins don't usually knock politely. Right?

"You my Candygram?" you call through the door.

There's a pause, and then, "Oh. Did you want to do a codeword? I guess we should work that out for next time. If there is a next time to worry about. Um... Rough Riders Assemble?"

You sigh out all your tension at the familiar voice: the Dancing Optimist, the Indefatigable Underdog - once, at Mr. Wines' masquerade revel, the Generic Luchador. You take your hand away from the derringer's grip and unfasten the bolts, glad suddenly for the company. Your ambitions have carried you each to different corners of the Neath; it will be good to catch up.

"Hey, kid, how's tricks?" You open both the door and your arms to him, but before he can respond, there's a flurry of wings and claws and furious keening. The bat that had seemed content to nestle in the eaves after dropping Roman's message into your breakfast plate has swooped down and snatched the tweedy cap straight off of your visitor's head, and is now bobbing against the low rafters with it, shrieking a high-pitched and utterly livid harangue. 

"Knock it off! This is Sami Zayn. We like him." You haul a disheveled Sami over the threshold and push the door to behind him, while the bat chitters back at you in graphically violent disagreement. "Okay, then _I_ like him, and I'm the one who buys the crickets around here."

The bat flaps its expressive wings in a gesture of deep disdain and relinquishes the cap before reclaiming its perch in the darkened corner between the roof timbers. 

Sami darts out a hand to snag the hat before it tumbles into the fireplace. He makes the catch, but as you pause to admire his reflexes, you realize that the cuffs of his coat are stained an unmistakable rusty red-brown. 

"Sami? You good?"

"I - I really don't know," he says, and there's something dark - distressed and distressing - in his eyes.

"Happens to the best of us," you say with a cheer you don't quite feel. 

His hands are steady, even as he begins to worry the tweed hat between them, but the rest of his body has begun to shake uncontrollably, tremors you can feel as you steer him away from the flames and down onto a worn velvet couch. 

"Coffee?" You've never known him to be much of a drinker, but it's clear he could use something to settle his nerves, or at least something to do with his hands.

"Please. Thanks," he says, then while your back is turned to press the percolator into service: "How long has it been since we saw each other last?"

You refrain from angling a glance back over your shoulder at him, but the question unsettles you all the same. Shouldn't he know the answer to that as well as you do? Maybe better, depending how recently you've been by the Cave of the Nadir or dropped into The Eclipse and accepted a drink of something smoky and strong from The Circumspect Devil. "It's been a minute," you admit, over the loud gurgle of the brewing coffee. "Maybe a little before the Exceptional Rose last year?"

"What about Kevin?" he asks. When you turn to face him, he's scrubbing his hands together savagely in the flickering glow of the fire. 

"The Loud-Mouthed PrizeFighter? What about him?" You want to tell him that his worst/best friend is bad news, a lodestone better cut loose before he drags Sami under the oily surface of the zee, but you know what a load of horseshit that would sound like, coming from you. And, you know how impossible it can be to walk away, leave well enough alone, live to fight another day. "It's been about that long, maybe a while longer, since he crossed my path, too," you say, finally relenting to Sami's hangdog expression. "What makes you ask?" 

"I'm missing some time," he admits. 

"Aren't we all, down here?" 

“Nineteen days of it, though?” He stands again and paces in front of the fire, jittery and wild, hands gesticulating as he speaks. “I remember picking it up... and then I woke up, filthy, like an unlucky weasel after a fight. Except none of the blood was mine, I don't think. I tried to sleep it off, and I have these dreams...”

“You been sleeping lately?” you interrupt, when he pauses to suck in a shaky breath. “'Cause you don't look like it.”

He shakes his head violently. “Only when I can't keep going. The dreams are bad enough – I can hear them all; feel the weight of the blade, the way their bodies give way – but then I see the papers, and I start to think I'm not having nightmares, but just remembering. That thing at the University? The Meddling Commissioner? The Resurgent G.O.A.T? I think I did all of that.” He swallows hard and looks up at you, suddenly seeming very, very young. “I think I've been a Jack.”

The words give you both a little knock. You've never considered yourself a nice guy, but Jacks are usually more savage than you were on your meanest, bloodiest day; it's hard to imagine your friend pulling on that face. He looks down at his boots, which you're just noticing are worse for the wear, caked with dried clay and spattered with dark stains. 

You step in and haul him to you in a hug. Jacks, more often than not, end up getting caught, and then getting just as messily and permanently dead as their victims. 

You drop a rough kiss onto his hair and then nudge him back toward the sofa as you draw away to prop open the window. You whistle a tune jauntier than your mood out into the gaslit gloom and wait for an answering note and the sounds of nimble feet on the roof slates. An urchin pops into view and balances on the windowsill to take your shopping list and a couple of Echoes, keeping a wary eye on Sami over your shoulder the whole while. 

"Take your coat off, stay a while." 

He grimaces at your forced cheer, but does shrug out of his gory coat and slump further against the couch's cushioned back, watching with heavy-lidded eyes while you bend to undo the clay-crusted laces of his high boots. By the time you've worked them free, your freelancing urchin is back, singing an ominous note that makes Sami's head jerk up in her direction. You swap a handful of peppermints for the parcel she carries and fasten the window tight behind her. 

The coffee is ready, and you unwrap your freshly-delivered bottle of F.F. Gebrant's best and pour a hearty slug into Sami's cup. 

“I haven’t seen Kev," he says, wrapping his hands around the steaming mug. "Except for in my dreams." He takes a gulping drink, grimacing at the bitterness of the laudanum. "I've been all across the city, asking around. No one has any idea where he is." 

You sit down next to him on the couch, nursing your own coffee and letting him wind himself down, listening to him talk as he drains his cup and pulls his feet up onto the cushion, curling miserably in on himself.

"I don't know what I did," he says. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"For now, you're going to stretch out," you say, and tug at his ankle, urging him to unfold his long legs across your own lap, "and sleep. While I watch out for nightmares. And fussy bats."

His gazes wanders uncertainly from your face, up into the corner where the bat's settled, and over the grisly stain on the sleeve of his coat, before settling on the snapping flames in the grate. His throat works and he picks his discarded cap up to settle over his eyes. "Thank you."

"Any time, brother." You watch for a moment as he sinks more deeply into the cushions and begins to breathe evenly. 

When you're sure he's down for the count, you reach for the rest of the urchin's bounty: a copy of the late edition of every paper being hawked on the street corner below. The bat grumbles darkly from the shadows above while Sami shifts fitfully and you thumb through _Barrett's Disagreeable Dispatches and Daily Bad News_ , scanning the close columns of newsprint for word of Kevin Owens.


End file.
